Two Saudis sent home from Guantánamo

Charlie Savage

Washington: Two Saudi men held by the United States without trial for nearly 12 years at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have been repatriated, the Pentagon said on Monday.

In addition, a Sudanese news agency reported that its government expects the last two Sudanese nationals at Guantánamo to be flown on an American aircraft to Khartoum, arriving by Wednesday morning. If those transfers take place, they and the just-completed Saudi transfers would reduce the detainee population to 158.

The moves showed that the Obama administration’s recent push to winnow the population of lower-level detainees, which stagnated after restrictions were imposed by Congress, appears to be gaining momentum. Over the summer, President Obama appointed new envoys - Clifford Sloan at the State Department and Paul M. Lewis at the Pentagon - to revitalise the effort.

“The US has made real progress in responsibly transferring Guantánamo detainees despite the burdensome legislative restrictions that have impeded our efforts,” Mr Lewis said in a statement. “In keeping with the charge the president has given us, Cliff Sloan and I are committed to facilitating additional responsible transfers to the maximum extent possible as we work to reduce the detainee population and ultimately close the facility.”

Congress is on the cusp of easing the Pentagon’s ability to transfer detainees to countries other than the United States; the provision is part of the annual National Defence Authorisation Act. The House and the Senate have both agreed on a final version of the bill, which the House has already approved.

The legislation would replace a system in which the secretary of defence must personally certify that the receiving country has met a list of security conditions, or waive items on a case-by-case basis. The new system would be more flexible, converting the list of conditions into a group of factors the secretary must consider when determining whether a transfer is in the national interest.

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The Saudi men who were transferred were Said Muhammad Husyan Qahtani, who is in his mid-30s, and Hamoud Abdullah Hamoud, 48. Military files had listed Mr Hamoud as a Yemeni citizen, but showed that he lived for a time with his father in Saudi Arabia. A United States official said that those files were inaccurate and that subsequent information showed he was a Saudi, and that the Saudi government claimed him as its citizen.

“We greatly appreciate the assistance and cooperation of Saudi Arabia in receiving these two individuals from Guantánamo,” Mr Sloan said. “These transfers are an important step on the road to closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.”Both men had been recommended for transfer by a national security task force in 2009. The bulk of the detainees on that list are from Yemen, where troubled security conditions have discouraged both the Bush and the Obama administrations from repatriating even low-level detainees.

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One of the two Sudanese detainees who is apparently being transferred on Tuesday is Noor Uthman Mohammed, who in early 2011 pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offenses before a military commission and has served the required portion of his sentence as part of that deal with prosecutors.

The other Sudanese man is Ibrahim Othman Ibrahim Idris, who was ordered freed by a judge in October after the Obama administration did not oppose a petition by his lawyers asking for his release on the grounds that his “severe long-term mental illness and physical illness” meant he posed no threat.

Meanwhile, the Algerian government said on Monday that two Algerian detainees who were involuntarily repatriated this month have been released after an evaluation period. Lawyers for the men had raised concerns that they would be mistreated by the government there.

J. Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represented one of the men, Djamel Ameziane, said he had heard that his client had been released and that he was ill. He said he was seeking more information.

We greatly appreciate the assistance and cooperation of Saudi Arabia in receiving these two individuals from Guantánamo